


Butter-Fly

by feithne



Series: Life Is Digital [2]
Category: Digimon - All Media Types, Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, Gen, Rachel Amber Lives
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-31
Updated: 2018-07-31
Packaged: 2019-06-19 18:41:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15516144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feithne/pseuds/feithne
Summary: Max and Victoria are swept into the Digital World, where Digital Monsters rule and where kidnapped girls go for safekeeping. Together with their Digimon partners, our 7 heroes will go on an adventure to thwart Mark Jefferson's vile machinations and save the Real and Digital Worlds!





	Butter-Fly

3:50pm. That’s when the snow started falling on Arcadia Bay despite the high temperature of that particular October afternoon. It didn’t melt, either, just fell to the ground and clumped up, as if to beg passersby to build it into snowmen or wage snowball warfare. Max Caulfield gazed across the desks out the window, marveling in the unexpected weather, and probably paying far less attention to Mr. Jefferson’s lecture than she should have been.

“...famously called film ‘little pieces of time.’ But he could be talking about photography, as he likely was…” Jefferson’s lecture went on. Max’s windowbound gaze shifted downward towards the empty desk formerly occupied by her friend, Kate Marsh, and sighed gloomily. Where had she gone? It had been days since she stopped coming to class, stopped responding to Max’s texts. How long would it be before her face was plastered all across school grounds on missing persons posters like Rachel Amber’s?

Victoria was answering a question in a subdued voice. Something about Diane Arbus and hopeless faces. “You feel, like, totally haunted by the eyes of those sad mothers and children.”

“She saw humanity as tortured, right?” came Mr. Jefferson’s reply. “And frankly, it’s bullshit.” A few surprised whispers spread throughout the class and he put a finger to his lips. “Shhshsh, keep that to yourself. Seriously, though. I could frame any one of you in a dark corner, and capture you in a moment of desperation. And any one of you could do that to me…”

The lecture went on, covering everything from Frank to Kerouac to early self-portraiture, but Max found herself tuning it out once again. A part of her felt guilty for doing so. This was supposed to be her favorite class, wasn’t it? She glared at the selfie sitting on her desk, the one she planned to turn in for Mr. Jefferson’s contest, but all she could think about was how pretentious and stupid it would be to submit a picture of herself to a contest about ‘Everyday Heroes.’ No way could she turn that in. She could already hear the class laughing at her.

So she stared outside at the falling snow, watching it pile up, and tried not to worry too much about how crappy her photo was, or the conspicuously empty seat in her periphery. At least she’d be able to take some slammin’ pictures of the freak October snowfall after class, right? No sooner had the thought entered her head than she snapped a practice selfie, almost habitually.

“I believe Max has taken what you kids call a ‘selfie.’ A dumb word for a wonderful photographic tradition. And Max has a gift.”  _ Shit. _ All eyes were suddenly on her, including queen bitch Victoria’s, though those were rolling. Max didn’t like where this was going, but she was utterly powerless to stop the gears of time from churning. “...Now Max, since you’ve captured our interest and clearly want to join the conversation, can you  _ please  _ tell us the name of the process that gave birth to the first self-portraits.”

Dread filled her stomach and she instinctively turned to Kate’s seat for support, but of course she wasn’t there anymore. Maybe 6 months would pass and she still wouldn’t be. Just like Rachel Amber. Instead of giving an answer, Max blinked stupidly and mumbled, “You’re asking me? L-let me think, um…”

Her teacher slammed his hand on the desk he was using as a seat. “You either know this or not, Max!” he shouted, sending her shrinking back into her chair. “Is there anybody here who knows their stuff?”

Not a single student raised a hand, and there was a moment of nervous silence as everybody exchanged awkward glances and shrugs.

Mr. Jefferson sighed. “If this were a photo, I’d call it a still-life.” 

Just then, the bell rang! That absolutely wonderful sound. As chairs scraped and students hurriedly gathered their things, beginning the routine shuffle out the door, Mr. Jefferson reminded everyone about the upcoming deadline for the contest, filling Max’s stomach with yet another knot of dread as she began to exit the classroom-

“I see you Max Caulfield! Don’t even think about leaving here until we talk about your entry.”

With an internal groan, Max spun about to face Mr. Jefferson.

 

* * *

 

 

So he might’ve called her one of photography’s future stars, maybe he said she had a gift. But Max couldn’t bring herself to believe it as she cradled her prized photo in her hands inside the well-graffitied girls’ bathroom after class. She felt like nobody knowing the answer to his question had really set Mr. Jefferson’s blood boiling, and she really got an earful for not “measuring up to her potential.”  _ Just relax _ , she tried to tell herself.  _ You have a gift. _

But as she looked into her face in the mirror, reflection staring bleakly back through drawn-on glasses and a graffiti moustache, she knew she didn’t believe it.

_ Fuck it. _

She ripped her photo in half. It was garbage, anyway. The dirty bathroom floor was where it belonged. Maybe she’d find a better picture outside in the hot snow.

...Or maybe a brilliant blue butterfly would fly in through the bathroom window and provide an even more stellar shot. There was really no maybe about this scenario, as that’s exactly what had just happened. Sometimes when a door closes, a window opens. Or something like that. Regardless, Max certainly didn’t get a photo-op like this every day. She carefully crept around the endmost stall to find her subject resting on a mop bucket, smiling as she remembered another blue butterfly from a very long time ago.

_ Say cheese, Hudiemon _ , she thought to herself, and took the shot.

Suddenly, the door burst open and a distinctly male voice echoed throughout the distinctly girls’ bathroom.

“It’s cool, Nathan! Don’t stress!” said the boy, apparently to himself. Max peered around the endmost stall to stealthily observe. “Y-you’re okay, bro, just count to three. Don’t be scared.”

It was Nathan “Rich Asshole” Prescott, Vortex Club douche and scion to the infamous Prescott family that probably literally owned not just Blackwell Academy, but at least half of Arcadia Bay itself. He’d brought a laptop with him and was shakily setting it up on the counter next to one of the sinks, continuing his self pep talk.

“You own this school!” he addressed his mirrored self. “If I wanted, I could blow it up! You’re the boss.” Just when Max was about to politely enlighten him as to which bathroom he had entered, the door opened behind him, but he didn’t so much as turn around, his eyes closed in concentration. “So what do you want?”

“I just want to talk, Nathan,” said Victoria Chase in a soft voice Max would absolutely never have conceived the queen bee was capable of.

“Vic!? The hell are you doing here? Where’s the other bitch?” Nathan asked, clearly bewildered. Had he been expecting someone else?

Victoria narrowed her eyes and her soft tone disappeared. “If you’re referring to that dropout trash with the blue hair, she’s probably off crying in her awful truck about her dead girlfriend right now.”

“You chased her off, huh? Good, she was starting to piss me off.” He nervously tapped his fingers against his shirt tuck, where a medium-sized object was clearly being hidden, Max could now see. Was that a…? No, surely Nathan was a jerk but not a murderer, right? “Now get lost, Vic. I got shit to take care of.” He glanced anxiously at the computer behind him, then back to Victoria.

“You don’t tell me to get lost, Nate. Not after the shit you pulled last night.”

Nathan shook a little. “You don’t tell me to do  _ anything _ , you got that?” He pointed a finger in her face that she merely met with a raised eyebrow. The boy took a moment to collect himself before continuing, “and besides, no shit happened last night. You’re high.”

“How stupid do you think I am? I’ve slipped shit into drinks before too, Nathan. I know what to watch for. You think just because it didn’t work, I wouldn’t notice?”

“I said,  _ you’re high. _ I didn’t do shit, and you can’t prove anything.”

“I just came here to talk to you about it!” Victoria shook her head. “You’ve been so fucking on-edge since the last Vortex party, and then you pull this shit? What the fuck is going on, Nate?”

“I… you- I’m not…” Nathan grabbed his head in frustration, or anger, or  _ something _ . Max had no idea what was going on in that boy’s brain. He’d tried to drug Victoria? Weren’t they supposed to be like, two evil peas in a pod?

“Hey…” The blonde girl extended what must have been a rare sympathetic hand and placed it gently on Nathan’s shoulder. “I--”

The hand was slapped away. “I told you to get lost, Vic!” He let out an anguished yell. “Why--why doesn’t, anyone, ever, listen to me!? You-- even you! You think you can talk down to me now and get away with it just cause you’re you??”

“Quit fucking pushing me away, goddammit! I’m  _ worried _ about you, you shit!”

_ “You don’t tell me what to do, bitch.” _

Nathan stood up straight and grabbed the item hidden in his shirt tuck. His back was to Max, but she could hear the tears in his voice, the occasional sniffle.

Nathan Prescott had a gun on Victoria Chase, and he was crying.

The blonde held her hands in the air. “Nathan… let’s just calm down a second, okay?”

He shook the gun at her, punctuating each of his words with a thrust of the weapon. “I said! Don’t. Tell. Me. What to do!” He aggressively stalked toward Victoria until he had the gun in her gut, crying profusely and shouting in her face. “I’m so SICK of people trying to CONTROL ME!”

“Please, Nathan--”

“Shut the fuck up!”

“Nathan--”

“I said  _ shut the fuck up! _ ”

BANG.

Nathan dropped the gun like it was made out of acid and fell back against the sink as Victoria fell to the ground in slow-motion, cashmere blouse stained forever with her own blood. Her face was permanently fixed in an expression of mild surprise, as though she still didn’t believe her friend would shoot her dead in a dirty graffiti-stained high school bathroom. Her killer placed his hands over his mouth, perhaps to keep from vomiting or perhaps in the hopes he could take everything back. But he couldn’t, he didn’t have the power to.

Someone else did.

**_“NO!”_ ** Max shouted, extending her right arm out from behind the stalls as if to catch Victoria, or stop the bullet, or just somehow fix everything. And so much to her surprise, the world around her blurred, Victoria’s descent slowed, and no sooner had the gun clattered to the ground than it immediately began a return journey along its previous trajectory. After a few seconds, Victoria was alive again, and she was arguing with Nathan… backwards.

“Holy shit... “ said Max in awe, looking to her right hand with astonishment. Her head began to hurt, and as she lowered her right hand the world refocused around her. Time began to move forward once again.

“-- _ tell me what to do, bitch.”  _ Nathan was saying.

Without a moment to lose, Max hurried to her hidden corner of the bathroom and searched for something, anything, to save Victoria’s life. Mop bucket, hammer, cleaning supplies, fire alarm--that’s it! She bashed the glass of the fire alarm with her fist only to be met with a pain in her hand and unbroken glass. She needed something else, something--

“I said  _ shut the fuck up! _ ”

BANG.

Horror sank into the pit of her stomach as she instinctively extended her hand to rewind time as far back as she could, trying not to acknowledge the fact that Victoria had just died, again. Hurry up the rescue, Max!

When time righted itself again, Max knew what she had to do. She kicked away the cart of cleaning supplies, grabbed the hammer hidden underneath, smashed the glass of the fire alarm, and slammed its bell as hard as she could.

“I’m so SICK of people trying to CONTROL ME!”

“Please, Nathan--”

_ WEEEEEE-- _

_ WEEEEEE-- _

“Shit!” As the alarm blared across the school grounds and the casual voices outside grew to a tumult, Nathan held the hand holding the gun to his head. “Fuck fuck shit! Fuck!”

Victoria put her hands down in concern. “Nathan…”  _ Run! Now’s your chance!  _ Max wanted to scream at her, but instead the Vortex Club princess wrapped her arms around Nathan Prescott’s shaking form. He dropped the gun. “Whatever’s going on with you, we’ll sort through it together, okay?”

The unstable boy sighed and wrapped his arms around Victoria. “Sorry, Vic,” he muttered, but instead of hugging her back he stabbed a syringe into her neck, then reached around her to tap a key on the laptop Max had almost forgotten was there. “I got no choice.” 

Suddenly, the whole world shifted and lurched around Max, twisting in all sorts of different directions. Colors blurred into each other as she collapsed to the ground, unable to keep up. She might’ve thrown up. She felt the sensation of being squeezed into something small, like maybe a bottle of toothpaste or possibly a thimble. And then before she knew what was happening, a hard tile floor was rushing up to meet her. A pained groan escaped her, but she was pretty sure she was only a little bruised. Falling hurts.

When she opened her eyes, the girls’ bathroom at Blackwell Academy was gone. In its place was a dark studio made out of a bunker. Creepy photos lined the walls, and Max rubbed her arms to try to shake the chill they instilled in her. Whoever took them certainly had an eye, but… god, those poor girls. Talk about “hopeless faces.” She heard voices - Nathan’s voice, specifically - and realized she must have been transported here along with him, probably Victoria too. First she traveled through time, and then through space? Was she Doctor Who now? She rose to a crouch and hid herself in front of a sofa while Nathan dragged Victoria off somewhere, the blonde herself not saying a word. She didn’t die again, did she?

“Didn’t wanna do this, you know, not to you. Told him to pick somebody else, but  _ nobody ever listens to me. _ Didn’t have to be you this time. And then you go and meet me alone? Fuck, Vic. Just-- fuck. I told you to get lost. I  _ told  _ you. You just had to fucking care about me, you dumb bitch.” He sighed and looked to his hostage sadly before disappearing from Max’s view.

She sank back to the ground and tried to process a few things very quickly. First point, Nathan Prescott was the minion of some dark mastermind who wanted to kidnap Victoria -- maybe for her money? It definitely wasn’t for good conversation, that was for sure. But wait, if they were after Victoria’s money, why wouldn’t they have taken Nathan too instead of making him a minion? With a gulp, Max wondered if maybe the Big Bad just liked kidnapping high school girls, because she could think of two high school girls who’d been missing for 6 months and 6 days, respectively.

Point the second was where had she been transported with Nathan and Victoria, and how? By the single push of a button on Nathan’s laptop? Unless there was a secret trapdoor in the girls’ bathroom that she didn’t know about, which she supposed was a little bit possible, there was no way that could’ve happened, barring the supernatural.

But that brought her to point three, which was that Max herself had clearly reversed time back there to save Victoria’s life. So she really had to stop discounting the possibility of supernatural phenomena, didn’t she? She reached out with her right hand experimentally and found that time bent to her will once again Though the only proof was the pounding headache and blurred peripherals, some part of her felt connected to time itself now. She wondered idly if she’d ever need a timer for anything ever again.

As time reversed around her, she arrived at point four: wasn’t it about time she started tailing Nathan and Victoria?

 

* * *

 

 

It took about 20 minutes of ninja-ing around and a handful of rewinds for Max to follow Nathan and his drugged hostage through the decrepit corridors of what looked to be ancient ruins without getting caught. And it was very important that she not get caught, because as she’d discovered during one particularly loud misstep (rewound immediately, of course), Nathan’s gun had made the trip with him to...wherever this place was. There were odd inscriptions on nearly every wall, but they didn’t match any language Max recognized, foreign or domestic. At least not until they came upon a large, metallic, clearly out-of-place door with the words  **MUSE ROOM** painted on it in bold yellow lettering. The door made a futuristic  _ whoosh _ sound as the kidnapper entered with Victoria, then closed shut behind the pair.

_ If I was an evil mastermind kidnapping girls, where would I put them? Oh, yeah. Right here. _

There didn’t seem to be a lock on the door as Nathan went in, so… she could either wait until Nathan came back out and hope he didn’t do anything to Victoria in the meantime, or jump right in and hope she got the element of surprise.

Think, Max, think!

_ Fuck it _ , Max decided,  _ It’s time to be an Everyday Hero. _

She leapt from her hiding place behind an old stone statue of some kind of creepy plant thing, then tried to keep her breathing calm and collected as the sliding door  _ whooshed  _ open in front of her, revealing a room just as hi-tech and futuristic as its door implied. Stasis pods lined the far wall, connected to complex computer crap along the walls on either side. Two were occupied, and a third was open. In the center of the room was a ceiling-high glass cage containing what Max could only describe as a cute green worm friend. It had too many legs, and a weird mouth, and antennae, and by all accounts probably  _ should  _ have been terrifying, but it just… wasn’t. It was adorable and friend-shaped, and observed the altercation before it with wide eyes.

Victoria was flailing in her unconscious state, coming close to waking up. Maybe she did so much drugs at Vortex parties that whatever Nathan dosed her with was less effective, like anesthesia at the dentist.  Or maybe Nathan had given her a smaller dose on accident? Whatever the case, she was sluggishly struggling in Nathan’s arms as he attempted to force her into the open stasis pod, Nathan yelling profanity the whole time.

Thanks to that, Max had been able to enter the room undetected. She quietly sneaked up behind Nathan, grabbed the gun from his pants, and pointed it at him. It almost seemed too easy, but she figured she was probably just getting good at all this superspy stuff.

“Don’t move!” Max shouted, getting Nathan’s attention instantly. “Well, except to let Victoria go! D-do that, and then don’t move!” Surprisingly, Nathan listened to her pathetic intimidation attempt, stepping away from Victoria and the stasis pod with his hands in the air.

“Fuck, Hipsterfield!? How’d you even get here?” He shook his head and made a break for the door. “You’ll pay for this, bitch! You don’t know who I am or who you’re messing around with!”

Max watched him go. She had an odd feeling about the whole exchange, couldn’t help feeling like Nathan had  _ let  _ her pull a gun on him, but that was stupid. This whole situation was stupid, she decided, glancing at the cute worm. The worm stared back, jumping up and down in its cage in excitement.

“Max! It’s you! It’s really you! I’ve been waiting so long!” said the worm.

Max blinked.

The worm blinked.

Max pointed at herself. “You know my name?” she asked, having halfway expected this thing to be able to talk after all of the day’s weirdness.

The thing nodded. “Of course, Max! I can’t wait to be friends with you! What’s your favorite color? Do you like to dance? Why do you have so few legs?”

Great, so they’d clearly crash-landed on a planet of psychic dancing worm people, and they’d be lucky to escape back to Earth with their lives intact. Just great. Max helped the still-dazed Victoria to her feet with some effort, then looked the worm thing in the eye. “Yellow, sometimes, and just because. Do you know how to get out of these ruins?” 

“Of course! I wasn’t always in here, you know. Well, I was always in a cage. But not here! They like to move me around.”

“Who is ‘they’?”

“Hmmmm…. I don’t know, Max. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it, Wormmon,” Max sighed. Wormmon giggled.

“See? You knew my name too!”

Before Max could contemplate the reasons behind that, Victoria was coming to with a groan, followed by a scream as the first thing she spied upon awakening was the buglike Wormmon. “Shit fuck what the fuck!” she exclaimed eloquently, before bringing a hand to her temple and forcing herself to become calm. “Ugh, what a bad trip. Are you real, Caulfield?”

“As far as I know,” Max replied.

“Me too!” Wormmon provided happily. Victoria ignored it, face forming into a scowl. She rounded on Max.

“You have exactly 10 seconds to explain where I am, why I’m here with  _ you _ , and why I’m tripping so hard I’m seeing worm monsters and sci-fi bullshit.”

“Okay, um, I don’t know, on accident, and I don’t think you are,” said Max. “Nathan… drugged you, Victoria. I followed him and I, I chased him off with this.” She gestured with the gun still in her hand, then tossed it aside. Max didn’t like guns.

A look of disbelief crossed Victoria’s face. “Right. Because you’re some kind of superhero. Nathan wouldn’t do that shit to me.”

“He did, Victoria. I was hiding behind one of the stalls, and I saw the whole thing--”

“Wait, in the bathroom? You were spying on us?”

“Not on purpose! I swear! I just wanted to leave, but then--”

“Where the hell are we, Caulfield?” Victoria asked again, a little afraid this time as her eyes fell upon the occupied stasis pods. “Rachel Amber is here.” Max’s jaw dropped. It was true, she recognized the sleeping beauty from the countless missing persons posters put up all over campus. And in the pod next to hers was…

“Kate…”

Wormmon answered Victoria’s question, happy to be of assistance. “You’re in the Digital World!”

“Digital… World?” Max repeated, tearing her face away from Rachel Amber’s. “Like a computer world or something?”

“Wait!” Victoria pointed to the caged bug in alarm. “You can see that thing too?”

“Yeah, of course. That’s Wormmon.”

Victoria’s scowl intensified. “Ohhhh, it’s Wormmon! Okay!” she bit sarcastically. “No,  _ fucking explain better _ !”

“I’m a Digimon, a Digital Monster!” Wormmon obliged.

“You shut up,” the queen bee ordered. “I’m not talking to shared hallucinations right now.”

Max shook her head. “I can’t explain, Victoria, and even if I could…” She looked anxiously to the girls in the pods. “We’ve gotta get them out and escape this place as fast as we can, before Nathan comes back.”

Victoria relented. “I’m letting this go one time, selfie slave. You’re explaining your ass off later.”

“Deal.” Max started pushing buttons at random. “Now help me free these two.”

“I don’t take orders from you,” Victoria snarled, but sauntered over to assist anyway. She examined the wall console next to the pods for a moment, made a decision, and pushed a large red button.

An alarm blared throughout the facility.  _ “Self-destruct sequence initiated.” _

“What did you do, Victoria!?”

_ “This base will explode in T-30 minutes.” _

“I was helping, bitch! Lay off!”

_ “Please evacuate all hostages by pressing the green button on the wall console. I repeat--” _

As the automated message began to loop, a confident smirk played its way across Victoria’s lips. “See?” She pushed the green button. “I know exactly what I’m doing.”

A whirring noise came from the pods that Max was fiddling with as they first drained of fluid, then sprayed the inhabitants with some kind of drug, hopefully the waking-up kind. After about 2 precious minutes of deactivation, the pod doors finally opened and thick mist erupted into the air. Rachel and Kate could be heard coughing within. In the center of the room, the glass of Wormmon’s cage lowered into the ground and the cute little bug immediately tackle-hugged Max to the ground. “Max!!! It’s so good to see you! Thank you for freeing me!”

“Y-yeah, sure, Wormmon!” Holding Wormmon to her chest with one arm, she blindly reached into the mist with the other and grabbed a hand. “No time to explain, we gotta get out of here!” she shouted by way of apology to whoever she clutched. She pulled the girl out of the pod mist to lock eyes with a face she’d only ever seen in sad black-and-white photographs: Rachel Amber.

She had long blonde hair, a blue feather earring in one ear, and hazel eyes filled with a spark that could start a wildfire. Max had known it was the case from the pictures, but Rachel Amber was… stunning. It wasn’t remotely the time for such things, but Max couldn’t help the heat rising to her cheeks from their connected hands.

Rachel Amber smiled, eyes displaying great curiosity. “Good morning?”

Max took a few beats too long to respond, caught up in Rachel’s gaze.. Her gay little heart went into overdrive as she tried to come up with an acceptable response. “Y-yes, I’m uh - I’m here to save you, I think.”

“Oh? I didn’t even realize I needed rescuing. And pray, what be your name, o valiant savior of mine?”

“I’m, uh, Max. Max Caulfield.”

_ “This base will explode in T-27 minutes.” _

“Max?” Wormmon tentatively spoke up. “Can I take you to the exit now? If we don’t hurry--”

“--we’ll be deep fried together, and there’s no way I’m dying with all of  _ you _ ,” Victoria finished, emerging from the mist with a coughing Kate. “Lead the way, hallucination.”

“You can count on me!!” Wormmon said, delightedly leaping out of Max’s arms and skittering off through the door. The four girls followed suit, chasing their small green friend through corridor after corridor of ruins.

“So, you’re her, huh?” Rachel asked as they rounded a corner. “I can see why she missed you so much.”

“What?”

“Don’t worry about it. It’s nice to meet you at last,” said Rachel with a gorgeous smile, in no way explaining anything. “You have an incredible energy.” She squeezed their held hands, and Max was suddenly and poignantly aware that Kate and Victoria weren’t holding hands at all.

“Max, what’s going on? Where are we? How did we get here?” Kate beseeched from the back of the group. “I-I remember a Vortex Club party, and…”

“The one where you locked lips with anything that moved, right?” Victoria smirked cruelly and Kate fell silent.

“Victoria, is this really the time?” Max chastised. Victoria wasn’t chagrined in the slightest.

“Did you talk to Nathan Prescott at all that night?” Rachel asked, putting the pieces of her own memory together.

“I… I remember he took me to the hospital because I was feeling dizzy,” Kate admitted, then shook her head. “Except I guess he didn’t. He took me here instead, didn’t he?”

“That tracks with my memory,” Rachel agreed.

“Wherever ‘here’ is,” offered Max. “I’ve never seen ruins like these anywhere in Arcadia Bay.”

Wormmon spoke up from the front. “Like I told you, this is the Digital World!”

“And who’s our strange guide?” Rachel asked, like they were on a tour bus in Hawaii and Wormmon simply hadn’t introduced itself yet.

“I’m Wormmon!” said Wormmon.

 

**Wormmon**

**Child Level Larva Digimon**

**Special Attack: Sticky Net**

 

“Why can you talk?” Kate wanted to know.

“Why can YOU talk?” their guide shot back.

Kate didn’t have an answer to that, so she just kept running.

 

* * *

 

 

Thanks to Wormmon’s brilliant memory and guiding, it only took the group until  _ T-15 minutes  _ to locate the exit, a shutter door labeled  **M-4** that had been left conspicuously open. Nathan must’ve escaped through it when the self-destruct sequence began. As everyone piled out through the shutter door, it didn’t take them long to take in their surroundings.

They had emerged into a wasteland. There was no sign of trees, grass, or any kind of life to be found beyond themselves. There was just dirt, rocks, and a whole lot of empty space.

“Toto, it looks like we’re not in Kansas anymore,” Max quipped, letting go of Rachel’s hand to pull out her analog camera. She had to prove to herself that this place was real, that she was still real.

Victoria scoffed at Max. “The building behind is about to blow up, and you’re taking pictures.”

“Always take the shot, right?” was Max’s excuse.  _ Whrrrr _ . She flapped the photo in her hands to make it develop faster, and stuffed her camera back in her bag along with her fresh, barren landscape shot. While replacing the items, a mysterious device she’d never seen before caught her eye and she pulled it from the bag. It was a bright yellow digital camera, or it looked like one anyway. She took an experimental picture with it, but nothing happened. Was it broken?

A noise reached their ears that could only be an omen of bad things to come: an earth shaking roar.

“Where did that come from?” Victoria asked.

“Look!” Kate exclaimed. “Up there!”

In the sky, rapidly descending toward the group, was a large blue flying lizard creature with tattered red wings, a white skull-like face, bonelike horns, and a mane like a lion. It roared angrily, lifting its head and opening its mouth wide.

“Oh no!” Wormmon cried, “It’s Airdramon!”

 

**Airdramon**

**Adult Level Mythical Beast Digimon**

**Special Attack: God Tornado**

 

“Airdramon is a very brutal Digimon said to be almost as powerful as a god! Its Special Attack, God Tornado, can burn its foes to a crisp or blow them away for good!” Wormmon elaborated, quivering in fear. “I don’t know what you guys did to upset it, but you should run, now!”

It was too late, however. The flying beast roared and let fly a jet of spiraling flame from its toothy maw, and the fiery tornado was on a collision course straight for them!

“No!”

“Max!”

“Look out!”

Max instinctively thrust out her right hand, and rewound the fire attack into the monster’s mouth. Letting time out of her grasp, she frantically ran to Wormmon, scooped it up, and dove for cover behind a rock.

Seconds later, that rock was blasted with the tornado of fire. She could feel the immense heat emanating from behind her, making her sweat pinballs.

As the flames dissipated, Wormmon hopped out of her grasp, climbed the large rock, and leapt into the air. “ **_Sticky Net!!!_ ** ” it shouted, launching streams of sticky webbing from its pincer like mouth to cover Airdramon’s body.

“Way to go, Wormmon! You immobilized it!” Max shouted, but her praise came too early. Airdramon flexed its mighty wingspan and shook the webs loose like a wet dog getting dry.

The rest of the group arrived to join Max in cowering behind the rock. Where everyone else looked frightened (even though Victoria was trying to hide it), Rachel’s expression was filled with excitement, just like Chloe’s had been on that fateful night 5 years ago. “Well, Max?” Rachel turned to Max expectantly, a curious glint in her eye. “Looks like our guide’s in trouble. What are you going to do?”

Wormmon and Airdramon were facing off, but Airdramon was clearly more powerful in every conceivable way. It was all the little bug could do to dodge the beast’s attacks and occasionally cover it in a pathetically sticky net. But it was trying so hard to protect its new friends… Max came to a decision. The universe had decided to give her superpowers today, right? Maybe it was time to use them properly.

“I’m gonna go help Wormmon,” Max announced.

“Knock ‘em dead, tiger,” said Rachel with a smile, wink, and wave.

“It’s your funeral,” Victoria said with a huff. “Don’t blame us if you both get charbroiled out there.”

“Good luck, Max! I’ll be praying for your safety,” was Kate’s encouragement.

Max leapt out from behind the rock and ran toward Airdramon, waving her arms in the air wildly. “HEY DICKBUTT!” she yelled, picking up a stone off the ground and hurling it in the flying creature’s direction. “IF YOU WANT ME TO SHUT UP, YOU’RE GONNA HAVE TO EAT ME!” The stone missed widely, but Max had its attention. It dove at her, its menacing jaw snapping like a piranha, but once it had descended low enough, Wormmon leapt up and tackled it, bouncing right off its scales. The bug rolled across the ground, battered but not beaten, and shakily rose back up on its many feet. Max rushed over and scooped it up in her arms, Airdramon’s snapping jaws hot on her tail. “Wormmon, why?” she asked. “Why are you fighting so hard for us?”

“Because… I’m so happy I finally got to meet you, Max. I’ve been waiting for you my whole life, and now you’re here.” The bug coughed. “I don’t think I can beat this one by myself, but I know I can stall it long enough for you and your friends to escape!”

A single tear dropped from Max’s eye onto Wormmon’s cute face, touched as she was by its friendship. “I’m happy I got to meet you too, Wormmon. We’ll distract it together!” A light began to shine forth from Max’s hoodie pocket where she’d hastily stuffed the mysterious yellow camera. The young photographer stopped running whirled around to face the flying beast. “Let’s go! Wormmon!”

“I’m with you, Max!”

The light from her pocket grew brighter and brighter as the duo charged, until it engulfed the battlefield. Max held Wormmon tightly to her chest. The view of Airdramon dissipated before her, replaced with swirling 0s, 1s, and random symbols of various languages and origins. She could feel Wormmon being lifted gently out of her arms and witnessed a yellow eggshell form around it. The brilliant egg descended into Max, flushing her entire body with radiant yellow light.

“Wormmon evolfuse to…!!” her friend’s voice echoed throughout her being, mingling with her own.

“Max Caulfield evolfuse to…!!” Suffused in yellow light as she was, her clothes seemed to melt into her being and reemerge as hard plating, covering her arms, chest, waist, and lower legs. Clawed gloves formed on her hands. Antennae sprouted from her head upon a three-pronged helmet with wide eyes, blue locks of long hair spilling out from the sides. Beautiful deep blue patterned butterfly wings sprouted from her back with a matching skirt forming around all but the front of her waist.

**_“Hudiemon!”_ ** came into existence, born from Max and Wormmon, their combined voices forming her own.

 

**Hudiemon**

**Adult Level Insect Digimon**

**Special Attack: Infinity Dream**

 

The world reformed around Hudiemon. Airdramon was still dive-rushing her, jaws snapping ferociously. She met its onslaught in midair, kicking the underside of its jaw with her hardened leg carapaces, sending the overgrown lizard spiraling away toward the open shutter. “Hmph! Not so tough now, are you?” the butterfly woman taunted, receiving a snarl from her foe in response, succeeded by a fire tornado blast. Hudiemon easily dodged by rewinding time with her right hand, and flew in close to deliver another powerful kick to Airdramon’s snout. The beast managed to whip her with its long tail, but she grabbed it after the strike and spun it around like a ball-and-chain, slamming it into the side of the mysterious facility. “This’ll finish you!  **_Infinity Dream!_ ** ” she shouted, fluttering her wings rapidly to create a gust of wind filled with paralyzing scales and sending it to accost Airdramon.

As the paralyzing wind enveloped Airdramon, it let out one last pathetic roar before collapsing. Its body glowed dimly for a brief moment, before shrinking and becoming a child-sized red dinosaur, clutching its head in its hands and groaning. A blank instant camera picture floated down in front of it, disappearing in a flash of darkness before it could reach the ground.

Hudiemon fluttered down to her friends behind the rock, who had witnessed the entire fight. She was now at least a foot or two taller than all of them, and each one stared up at her in awe, speechless. Except for Rachel, of course, who stepped forward to eye Hudiemon up and down. “That was very impressive. I like the new look. You’re Max, and… Wormmon, was it?”

“I’m Hudiemon! B-but, you can call me whatever you want, I mean, um…”

Rachel giggled and stood on her tiptoes to give Hudiemon a kiss on the cheek. “Thank you for saving us, Hudiemon.” The butterfly woman blushed a deep red, sputtered furiously, then glowed dimly yellow and suddenly separated into Max and Wormmon, who fell a small distance to the ground. Max landed on her butt.

“Ow… Rachel! Don’t mess with me like that!” Max complained, blushing deep crimson and rubbing her bruised butt.

“‘Twas but a mere token of my appreciation, fair maiden,” Rachel teased dramatically, extending a hand to help Max up. “Or maybe you were such a beautiful creature that I simply couldn't help myself.”

Max took Rachel’s offered hands and tried to get in control of her blush. Wormmon looked eagerly between Max and Rachel, but said nothing.

Kate gathered her wits and dusted herself off. “You, um, you both make quite a lovely butterfly, Max and Wormmon,” she said politely. “I can’t wait to meet Hudiemon again.” She turned to their final companion, still sitting against the large rock, pointedly looking anywhere but at the cheerful victors. “Don’t you agree, Victoria?”

“I don’t care,” said Victoria flatly, getting to her feet. “I’m going to go somewhere else, so that I’m not right next to a building that’s about to explode. Don’t feel like any of you have to follow me.”

And with that, Victoria picked a direction and started journeying forth into the wasteland. The rest of the party exchanged worried glances.

“We can’t let her go off on her own, can we?” Kate asked. “What if there’s another Airdramon? Or something worse?”

“Then I’ll become a happy butterfly and save the day again!” Wormmon proclaimed.

“That’s right,” Max agreed happily. “Nothing can beat us if we’re together!”

Kate and Max made to follow Victoria, but Rachel hesitated, glancing at the unconscious red dinosaur right next to the building whose self-destruct was imminent.

“Rachel?” Kate questioned.

“Be just one second,” said Rachel, darting over to the dinosaur and, with some effort, lifting it onto her back so she could carry it. She was stronger than she looked, or maybe the dinosaur just wasn’t all that heavy. For a dinosaur. Whatever the case, Rachel rejoined them with dino in tow. In response to Kate and Max’s quizzical looks, she said, “If Max can become a hot butterfly chick, who’s to say I can’t turn into a sexy lizard woman?”


End file.
